Google Is Tracking Your Every Move, Even If You Don’t Want Them To

Meagan Nantwich 8/18/2018

One of the biggest questions in technology today is the benefit of using location services. Sure, enabling the technology can help you do things like find a cab, or a bank, or even order food delivery, but an increasing number of users feel that sharing too much about your location really compromises their privacy.

Despite Google always seeming to ask whether or not you’d like to allow them to see where you are, according to an investigation by Associated Press, Google is tracking you, regardless of your answer.

One of the most notable aspects of Google’s use of your location is that it will remember your history based on the places you use it to navigate to on a daily basis. The technology has been used by law enforcement officials in order to track the suspects of crime in the past. While that pursuit is a noble one, it’s only a matter of time before the data is misused.

Though you have the option of opting out of the tech company storing your location history, some apps with access store it anyway, and it’s not as simple to delete that information. What that means is whether or not you want to be, your whereabouts can likely be pieced together by looking at the different apps that you use from day to day.

“There are a number of different ways that Google may use location to improve people’s experience, including Location History, Web and App Activity, and through device-level Location Services,” a spokesperson for Google shared with the AP. “We provide clear descriptions of these tools, and robust controls so people can turn them on or off, and delete their histories at any time.”

Unfortunately, even though Google makes it seem straightforward, the actual data that’s stored, even when everything has been turned off, is far more precise than it should be.